iPhone 5 Lightning cables sticking in USB ports, are you removing it wrong?

The iPhone 5/iOS 6 issues and complaints continue to roll in. This time around there are complaints popping up on Apple’s support forums about the new lightning USB cables getting stuck in USB sockets.

One Apple customer, posting under the name ‘gvilledh’, explained his experience as follows:

“I went to unplug the USB cable from the wall wart and it was extremely tight. The white sleeve over the connection started to slide off, but I was able to get it out.”

gvilledh took his cable back to an Apple store where it was replaced, but he says ” My new one is still tight, but not as bad as the first one.”

So I tried to unplug my brand new Lightning connector from the white power block and the white plastic surrounding the USB end slides right of revealing the medal connectors

The source of the problem seems to be the two small rectangles cut into one side of the USB A plug, with posters reporting they are a little deeper than those in other connectors. That extra depth seems to result in the tines of a USB socket digging in to a depth at which they won’t easily slide out.

Some posters say downward pressure, to angle the USB plug down a little, helps to withdraw it from the socket.

Its too early to expect an answer from Apple, but lets hope its not the “you’re doing it wrong” approach from yesteryear.